Forums » BMJ » Careers » ATTENTION! Graduates are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
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ATTENTION! Graduates are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 3:20 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 18
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 19/5/2011 |
Dear forum members, If you would like to read this paper and feedback your views to the BMA's medical students Committee please email me on reb.mcknight@gmail.com and I will send you the paper when I receive it. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 4:25 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
I saw your post on NMM & thought I'd share my experience over here. I'm also 31, married with 2 young children. I never knew what I wanted to do until after I had my children; I returned to uni to study Biomedical Science when my youngest child was 1 year old. I knew I wanted to study Medicine, but I didn't have the 'A' level grades, so elected to study for another degree & apply as a Graduate, thinking this the far more useful than resitting 10-year old 'A' levels again in order to gain entry to Medicine. Does not being able to get a tuition fee loan affect you? Yes. In 2010 the Government pulled the rug out from under my feet. I had already made a deferred application to Medical school & paid £200 to sit the GAMSAT, when it was announced that tuition fees from 2012 would be tripled. I may have been able to scrape together £14000 for 4 years of tuition under the previous system, however £36000 is just ludicrous. I am not fortunate enough to have rich relatives to pay for me, therefore if there is no support in place for poorer graduates then I will not be going to medical school because I am not rich enough. (If this situation had been announced 3 years ago, I could have taken alternative action & not enrolled on my first degree course, therefore making me eligible for a tuition fee loan for Medicine - but sadly I cannot rewind time!). How does this make me feel? It makes me incredibly angry that suddenly because of this new Governments' decisions, my plans for my familys' future are in tatters. The worst of it is that it has been a snap decision which has been ill-thought out & ill-implemented. Nobody knows what will happen to graduate students, yet the changes have been forced through anyway, leaving many people like myself wondering & worrying what will become of them. What do I want the Government to do? Realistically, I want to be able to borrow the money to pay for tuition fees, so that I may pay it back when I am qualified. I don't want a free ride, I want short-term help to get there. Of course other assistance such as a maintenance loan would be nice, but all I really NEED is a tuition fee loan. What will happen if support is not provided? Without assistance such as this I will not be going to Medical school. The withdrawal of this support has left my dreams hanging in the balance, and if tuition fee support is not provided then I honestly do no know what I will do with my life. It took me 28 years to decide what career I wanted, which sadly, was potentially just one year too late to be able to follow my dreams  In short, because of the timing of the announcement and due to the lack of support availble, I will not be able to train as a Doctor because I do not have the money to do so. Once again Medicine has become elitist, despite the Government claiming that they are 'widening access' to Medicine. What a complete joke - if that were true then I wouldn't find myself unable to train as a Doctor now, through no fault of my own! |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 5:00 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
In Response to Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!: Does not being able to get a tuition fee loan affect you? How does this make me feel?What do I want the Government to do? What will happen if support is not provided? I am also 31, with a 12 year old son and am currently finishing a distance learning degree while working full time. I have a mortgage and a personal loan taken out when my marriage broke up. I earn a reasonable salary but not enough to be able to save the kind of money that is required for the new tuition fees while still paying my bills and supporting my son. I funded my first degree myself and have never taken any kind of student loan. I think it is incredibly unfair that because I want to make a future for myself and show my son the value of a good education, hard work and following your dreams that I should be punished in this way. I can't see why the government will not give tuition fee loans to those who need them - they get the money back and get a healthy dose of interest on top. I think they should be supporting people who want to better themselves rather than making universities elitist and for the wealthy only. If support is not provided medicine and other such careers will become far less diverse and quality of treatment and service in the NHS will suffer |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 5:07 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
I am 23 and looking to apply to medicine this september. I have no idea how or whether I will be able to afford it. I have a first degree in a science related degree, and a postgraduate diploma I took while deciding what I wanted to do with my life. I think it is very unrealistic to expect any 18 year old to know they want to go into medicine when I lot of them including me have no idea what it is really about. Career guidence in schools is a joke, but that is another issue. Because of a learning disability that affected my development I was a particually young 18 year old who would not have met requirements to enter medical school. A couple of years helped me to grow up and I don't think I should be penalised for needing that extra time. Having gotten a taste of it there is nothing in this world I want to be more than a doctor. Funding could very well stop this from ever being a reality. If funding is scrapped I honestly don't know what I will do. I want this so bad but if I can't get the money then I can't get the money. I barely earn minimum wage in my job when I can get a job in this ecomedy so have no realistic way of coming up with that much money up front. It could barr me from medicine. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 9:55 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
I'm a 1st year medical student and am suffering under the governments current proposals. Someone doing medicine as a first degree is able to access the maintenance loan, maintenance grant, and crucially the tuition fee loan. This is significant due to the planned rises in tuition fees.
The current position for most second degrees is that public funding is not available, presumably because it would create too much of a drain on the public purse/student loan company. However, there is an exception for “professional” degrees such as medicine which permits some funding for people studying it as a second degree. This exception only applies to the maintenance loan, meaning that students doing medicine as a second degree are still left without the maintenance grant, and more importantly the tuition fee loan.
The current situation at the moment is that mature students doing medicine as a second degree currently have to self-fund the £3400~pa. tuition fees and any shortfall in daily living costs.
Under the new system this shortfall will triple for most medicine degrees to £9000. This changes the fees from a significant amount (albeit achievable through a summer of hard work, and a part time job in term time) to an almost insurmountable obstruction except for those with significant savings (£36,000 on tuition fees alone until the NHS bursary takes over in the final year). There used to be professional loans for medical students to study as a second degree so they were able to pay back at the end of their course when they start earning, however these have recently been taken off the market.
Research and academic commentary has suggested the UK medical education system is slowly swinging towards higher numbers of postgraduate entrants compared to school leavers.
This means that there is an increasing number of mature students studying medicine, or wanting to study medicine, who are faced with minimal assistance in raising the £36,000 minimum to start studying. Given that these people are planning a life-long career of selfless public service, is there any way more support can be offered in the initial stages of studying – it certainly doesn’t help access to medicine for the poorest families when those studying as a second degree have to pay such high fees upfront. Although I worry about the debt I will be in when I graduate, I would far rather graduate in debt, than be unable to study medicine at all because I am unable to afford it. Given the important and unique role a medical degree plays in society today, I would implore MP's as a medical student of today and a doctor of tomorrow, to consider special provisions for students studying medicine as a second degree.
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 11:34 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
I had multiple offers in 2009 when i was an 18 year studying for my A2s but became seriously ill through no fault of my own during my final exams and missed the grades narrowly. I applied a further 2 times after taking 2 gap years for 2010 and 2011 entry and was rejected from all without interview. The feedback i received suggested that resitting my A2s had too much of an effect compared with the applicant pool to give me an interview and that my application would benefit from doing a degree. 3 of the unis on my 3rd app strongly suggested i reapply as a grad as long as i keep up extra curriculars and get a 2.1. With the advent of this new tuition fee regime, I am very uncertain about whether another application is worth it because graduate entry is now my only option. As a pharmacy graduate I will be in about £20K of debt by the end of my degree (which is a very low debt compared to others that i know as I would commute to uni and live at home). Alongside the huge issues with tuition fees I feel that as a graduate, there are other concerns such as mortgages, family, the amount of debt I would accrue by doing GEM and of course a lost salary. I calculated the other day that I would probably lose £160K in earnings if i were to do GEM. Normally this wouldn't have phased me at all but given the decreasing job security in medicine and the further development of pharmacy, it really is making me think twice, even though medicine is my first love and i would still cut my right arm off for it at the moment. If I work for a few years as a pharmacist I could quite easily find the £36k needed but this would delay me getting a mortgage and mean that i wouls spend even less time working as a doctor. Graduates are in a significantly far worse position than school leavers and widening access will go down the pan. Graduates just don't have this sort of money unless they work for a few years to raise the funds which of course delays other aspects of adult life such as starting a family. I really do feel strongly that something needs to be done otherwise there will be a whole generation of lost doctors. Deep down I know that I do not want to spend the next 40 year sof my life as a pharmacist but I see no other option. The other problem that this government hasn't considered is that those students who are starting the first year of their degree in 2012 will be paying the £9K fee but what will happen to these students when they decide later in life that they want to be doctors - it just won't be possible because there will be too much debt. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 18/4/2011 11:44 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 18/4/2011 |
I'm 27 and currently studying for a diploma in operating department practice. I've alwsys wanted to do medicine but was not equipped with the dedication and skills necessary to make a good doctor at the age of 18. The UK stands out as a nation that forces it's young people to make choices regarding thier education and career paths at a very young age, with first degrees often proving fruitless in what that person decides they want from a career later on. Medicine particularly stands out as in many countries they insit that you have a previous degree in order to start a medical course. These countries seem to understand the benefits of recruiting well rounded individuals with life experience who have seriously thought out, researched, dedicated and committed themselves to this career path. Perhaps if more emphasis was placed on this the drop out rate for healthcare courses wouldn't be so high and we wouldn't have the problem of 'wasted' public money on students who don't go the full distance. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 19/4/2011 2:27 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 3
First: 19/4/2011 Last: 21/4/2011 |
I am 27 and have recently completed a PhD in bio-medical research. I have wanted to study medicine for a long time but only feel in a position financially to do it now. I was tempted to apply for medicine at 18, and despite getting excellent grades I didn't have the self-confidence to apply. I completed a biochem degree at Oxford and again was very keen to apply to medicine. However, having support myself for my undergrad and racked up a considerable student debt, I didn't feel I could afford to fund the degree. So I took on a PhD part-time whilst working full-time. Having completed my PhD and managed to clear my debt, I am now working as a post-doc while I save up enough to cover my medical degree. I have applied to a london GEP course and been offered a place, which I have deferred till 2012. The increase in fees has come as a big shock, however I am still commiteed to studying medicine. 1) Does not being able to get a tuition fee loan affect you? I hope to have saved up enough to cover the £9000 fees for the first year and have enough to cover my living costs, but I think I will have to do a lot of part-time work during the course to support myself. 2) What will happen to your plans if the NHS scrap the funding of tuition fees for the 5th year and years 2-4 of the graduate degree? If this happens it would completely destroy my hopes of studying medicine. If I had to pay £9000 for all 4 years up front, I would have no hope of affording the course. 3) How does this make you feel? I am now very nervous about next year. If they cut the NHS bursary I'm not sure what I will do. I feel I am in a much better position now than I was at 18 or after my undergrad to become a successful doctor and I think my experience in medical research will be a significant asset. However, if delaying by an extra year ends up costing an extra £33,000, it could be the end of my dream to study medicine. 4) What are your recommendations for the government? I believe graduate entry medics are a fantastic asset to the NHS. It's becoming a more popular route into medicine both in the UK and overseas, for example many australian universities are scrapping the medical courses for school leavers and only taking graduates. The increase in fees is a big hurdle and will cause many people to stuggle, but if the NHS bursary is removed as well, it will make it completely impossible for all but the very wealthy. If the government are serious about widening access to medicine, they must keep the NHS bursary system in place and making fee loans available to graduates would also make a huge difference to a large number of very talented graduates that wish to study medicine. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 19/4/2011 9:26 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 18
First: 18/4/2011 Last: 19/5/2011 |
Does anybody know how many graduates have applied to do a degree in medicine this year? With the increase in fees and the removal of student loans to cover fees for graduates and the potential removal of the NHS funding for fees in years 2-4, it seems plausible that the number taking these places up will drop significantly. It also seems plausible that in the long term some of these courses will close. David Cameron and his government are destroying access to medicine for graduates and turning it into a profession only for the wealthy. I would urge the government to reinstate tuition fees and maintenance loans for graduate medical students and to continue to support the system through the NHS... Or at least go on record and tell it how it is... That graduate medicine is only for the rich. |
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Re: ATTENTION! Graduate's are being priced out of studying medicine! Your View/Help Needed!!
posted at 19/4/2011 10:01 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 37
First: 16/1/2010 Last: 16/5/2013 |
Back in 2001 I started medicine as a BSc graduate and was eligible for a student loan. My tuition fees were small in comparison though. Graduate medical students face problems throughout medical school that other medical students don't even comtemplate, but after getting accepted, living with no money is the toughest issue. I wish you all the best in your endeavours |
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